Home
Weekly Writer's Group
Special Events
Members
Contact Us..

Ellen Bonnifield
Paul Bonnifield
Jodi Foy Buchan
Judith Carol Day
Tony Crawford
Kathleen Guler
John Grassby
Harriet Freiberger
Karen Leslee
Edith Lynn Hornik Beer
Graydon D Hubbard
Michala Miller
Joyce Phillips
Cesare Rosati
Sandra Sherrod
William D. Skees
Bill Stocks
Susan de Wardt
Bonnie McGee
Marian Tolles
Glen Poulter
Tina Weintraub
Robert Howe
Todd Kelly

Tony moved to Colorado ten years ago, and has until recently been writing mostly essays and short stories. After joining the Steamboat Writers Group three years ago and meeting many participants who have written novels, he has finally worked up the nerve to write his own. The following is an excerpt from this soon to be finished novel:

'Tom, it's Sandy. The hospital needs me to work tonight, and since I've got a little free time this afternoon, I thought of you. Are you free?'
My dark mood suddenly changed and became charged with anticipation. 'Of course not, I'm about as expensive as they come. When can I expect you?'
I was shocked when I heard a click and the annoying buzz of the dial tone. Then after a few seconds as I stood in my kitchen confused and agitated, I heard the front doorbell. I'm slow, but not that slow; I knew Sandy had called using her cell-phone, from just outside the house. Shaking my head, I rushed to the door.
'Well, you look happy to see me, you old goat.' Sam announced with a broad grin. 'What's up?'
My anticipatory smile evaporated. Dazed, I backed into the living room, inviting Sam to follow. 'Oh, hi Sam. You just surprised me. That's all.'
'Damn, you're moody!' Sam said, looking at me suspiciously. 'I'd swear you went from happy to see me, to disappointment in two seconds, flat. What the hell's going on?'
Just then the phone rang again, giving me time shift gears and to get my thoughts together. It was Sandy calling back and telling me that we had inadvertently been disconnected and that she was on the way over. My life was getting way too complicated. I answered, saying, 'Nope, now's not a good time. Got company; I'll call you back as soon as I can.'
Sandy, surprised and a little perturbed, asked, 'Is Dad there?'
'Yep,' and lowering my voice, I added, 'Just happened.'
'Damn,' she said. 'I was looking forward to seeing you.'
'Me too,' I mumbled.
'Call me as soon as you can.' And with another click, she was gone.
'Who was that? Sounds mighty suspicious,' Sam teased, as he sat on the couch.
'The cable company; I've been having trouble with the internet connection,' I lied.
'My being here shouldn't have been a problem,' Sam said. Sam was beginning to annoy me.
'You said you wanted to talk with me, so talk.' Sam sounded annoyed too.
'Want a beer, some coffee?' Although I hardly ever drank beer, I always kept it on hand for Sam.
'Sure, I'll have a beer. What you got?' Sam seemed to think that everybody's refrigerator was like a bar, crammed full of assorted beers.
As I went to the refrigerator to get a Coors for my friend, Ole Ben sauntered into the living room, licking his chops, wagging his tail, and feeling the kind of sublime happiness that only dogs can feel, being with people they love.
Sam immediately forgot me and began a rumble on the floor with Ben. Again, I found myself flabbergasted at how nimble Sam was, down on the floor, like a three year-old. Sam and Ben had this game they loved. Sam would grab the old dog and gently slide him on the hardwood floor the entire length of the living room and into the kitchen. Ole Ben, like a puppy, would then claw at the floor trying to get traction, and getting it would race back to Sam, only to be lovingly flung again. After a few rounds and when both knew they had had enough, they'd stop, and with Ben putting his head in Sam's lap, Sam would stroke Ben on the head and shoulders. Only then, would they allow me into their world.
'Sam, I talked with Flossie this morning and.,'
'Yeah, I know all about it. Flossie told me she was going to tell you about the damn water buffalo.' Sam's eyes began to have that faraway look that I had seen before. Probably the same kind I had when I remembered Vietnam.
I poured hot water from a kettle into my favorite mug, dropped a green tea bag in it to let it simmer, and carried the Coors into the living room for Sam. Sam reached up from the floor, red-faced from having tossed around Ole Ben, and took the beer. 'Thanks.'
After twisting the top of the bottle and putting the cap at his side on the floor, he raised the bottle to his lips and downed at least a third of its contents. A misdirected drop rested on a couple of upturned hairs from his beard. Sam wiped his chin with his forearm, saying, 'I needed that.'
'What's this about the water buffalo?' I asked.
'Tom, It's the damnest thing. You've heard me talk about it before. You know about all the gooks I killed. Damn, you've killed a few too. I'm not bothered about the gooks. It's the damn buffalo. It don't make any sense. I'm too old for this. It's been too long. I made peace with all that crap a long time ago.'
After getting my tea from the kitchen, I sat on the couch across from Sam, the words, 'a long time ago,' and 'you've killed a few too' resonating in my head. Unlike Sam, I wasn't sure if I had actually killed anyone; didn't know if it was easier not knowing or actually knowing one way or the other, like being an agnostic. One of the things I hated when I came back from the war was people asking, 'Did you kill anybody?' In a firefight everybody is shooting, and most of the enemy soldiers in Vietnam that were killed, were killed by more than one bullet from a single rifle. An automatic rifle like the M-16 is like a machinegun. You don't aim a machinegun; you point your weapon and fire in multiple bursts, three rounds each time. I didn't have Sam's vantage point; in a helicopter, looking down on a target, firing his weapon, and watching the target go down. But, Sam was right about it having been a long time ago.
Looking up over Sam's shoulder and out the big window that showed Lincoln Avenue down below, and the mountains beyond, I felt disoriented. This is now, but my thoughts were thousands of miles away and forty years ago, a lifetime. It was then that I realized Vietnam had until recently, divided my life into two halves: the life I had before, and the life I had after. Now with my wife's death, another boundary had been crossed; I'd never be as I had been before.
'I've got it figured out,' Sam continued. 'It's karma. That big bull buffalo I killed that night forty years ago, that's me now. What goes around, comes around.'
'I don't understand. Are you saying someone's going to kill you?' Feeling a chill, I looked back in the kitchen and saw that I had left the door that opened to the deck open. Not wanting to interrupt Sam, I ignored the chill.
'It's not someone. It's everyone. They are all out to bring me down. Just like a swarm of bees, or a bunch of those piranhas in the Amazon. You know how they attack and kill, not one at a time, but hundreds., thousands. I can't fight them all. I know I'm doomed.'
'Who are they?' I asked. It was obvious, Sam was paranoid.
'You remember Peter Finch in the movie, Network, in the early seventies? I think he got an Academy Award. Had Fay Dunaway in it. I liked her. Remember him saying, 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not taking it anymore.' I feel like that. I'm mad as hell too. But I know there's nothing I can do about it. It's karma.'
'This is about the trailer park, isn't it?' Sam's identity was somehow becoming his trailer park, and with everyone wanting to do away with it, they were, in Sam's eyes, wanting to do away with him.
'Naw. It's more than a bunch of trailers. It's the whole ball of wax, the big enchilada, the last picture show. Now there's another good movie. Remember Cybil Shepard on the diving board, taking off her clothes?' Sam gently pushed Ole Ben to the side, got up off the floor, and downed the remainder of the Coors. Ole Ben was just about to scarf up the bottle cap left lying on the floor when Sam beat him to it, saying, 'Oh no you don't little guy. That wouldn't make your daddy happy.'
With a belch, Sam asked, 'Have you read much of Larry McMurtry?' Did you know he wrote The Last Picture Show? The book was the first of a trilogy. Texasville is the second and Dewayne's Depressed, the third.'
I've read Lonesome Dove; that's about all I guess,' I answered wondering if this was going some where pertinent.
'Well Mr. Smart Guy with the college degree, I've got a question for you.' Sam was walking into the kitchen. He often made himself at home, and I was pretty sure he'd get another beer.
From the kitchen he continued, 'McMurtry recently wrote a forth book, titled, When the Light Goes. It's about this guy, Dewayne. Dewayne's the one that was played by Jeff Bridges in the movie. Remember Sea Hunt? I loved that show. Lloyd Bridges was Jeff Bridges' daddy. I suspect that most old farts like you and me, who got our scuba certifications, did so because of the damn TV show. How can a trilogy have a forth book?'
Finally I asked, 'What's all this got to do with anything?'
Sam was now walking back into the living room with his fresh Coors. 'I don't know. But one thing I do know is you can learn everything you need to know from watching good movies.'
'What about good books? I asked skeptically.
'Them too, but they take too long,' then adding as he held the new Coors up where I could see it, 'Mind if I have another?'
I shook my head, and after drinking the last of my tea, said, 'I need to freshen my tea.'
'Tea! Why the hell do you drink that stuff? And why does it have to be green? Black, or brown tea I can understand; it's more like coffee, but drinking green tea is like drinking piss.'
It still amazes me that Sam and I are such good friends. We are so different in so many ways. The idea that opposites attract never made any sense to me, but maybe there is something to the idea; something in one that either compliments or supplements the other. I decided not to respond to either the college degree dig or the green tea put down.
While I was in the kitchen preparing my tea, Sam continued his monologue, 'In this forth book, Dewayne rides a bike wherever he goes. His wife is dead, kids grown, his business doesn't need him, and he doesn't like driving a truck anymore. He sees a therapist and ends up having a relationship with her, and also with a pretty little geologist that works for him, young enough to be his daughter. He's about our age. Not bad. Not bad at all! Dewayne has a heart attack.'
The reference to someone having a relationship with someone young enough to be his daughter was a little too close to home. I wondered if Sam knew about Sandy. 'Are you depressed?' I asked, hoping to shift the direction back to Sam.
'Hell yes, I'm depressed. But it's not the kind of depression that should worry you and Flossie. You guys just don't get it. You remember all that nurture verses nature crap from your psychology books? You remember predestination from your philosophy books? And in your physics books, Quantum Mechanics, where things can be in more than one place at the same time, and can be influenced by perception. Reality is perception. It's all of that and more.'

Back to the top